Harpreet Kaur presented her PhD research (as well as some of Emilie’s and Sophia’s) on rare metal catalysis in prebiotic chemistry at the latest virtual meeting of NASA’s Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3) Research Coordination Network. As a bonus, don’t miss the 5-minute introduction to protometabolism by Kamila Muchowska. Well done, Harpreet!
You can watch her talk here (skip to 12:20)
The research field of protometabolism, including work from our lab and quotes from Joseph and Kamila, is the subject of an article in National Geographic. Thanks to Michael Marshall for this accessible piece. Read it here.
Jing’s work on a non enzymatic analog of pyrimidine nucleobase biosynthesis has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Congrats!
Congrats to Kamila Muchowska for being chosen as one of the six finalists for the European Young Chemist Award at the Early Career Researcher level!
Kamila and Sreejith’s 37-page review on the feasibility and importance of non enzymatic metabolic reactions for the origin of life has appeared in Chemical Reviews. We hope it will inspire others to pursue this direction. Congrats!
Our fourth experimental paper on the chemical origins of life is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. It is the result of an international collaboration with researchers in Germany and Japan. We show that three common iron-based minerals promote the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to give, almost exclusively, the intermediates and end-products of the Acetyl CoA pathway. This enzyme-free chemistry maps closely onto the biological pathway, suggesting it had geochemical origins. Congrats to Kamila and Sreejith from our group and thanks to our great collaborators! Free read-only version here. Paywall version here. Also check out the accompanying Behind the Paper post here.
Our third paper on the chemical origins of life is published in Nature. We show that ferrous iron promotes a one-pot reaction network that resembles the Krebs cycle and amino acid synthesis, starting from just pyruvate and glyoxylate. These enzyme-free reactions could have been a precursor to biological metabolism. Congrats to Kamila and Sreejith! Free read-only version here. Paywall version here. Also, check out the accompanying News & Views article by Robert Pascal here.
Kamila and Elodie’s invited account of our recent work on non-enzymatic metabolic pathways has been published in Bioorganic & Medicinal Letters. The special issue is in honor of the 2019 Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award to Dr. Raphaël Rodriguez.
Congrats to Dr. Kamila Muchowska for winning the People’s Choice award for Best Talk at the Polonium Foundation meeting “Science: Polish Perspectives 2018” in Berlin! Her talk described her recent advances in understanding the origins of biological metabolism. This is Kamila’s second “best talk” award in the part three months.
Congrats to Dr. Kamila Muchowska for winning the EuChemS oral communication prize at the 9th Barrande-Vitava French-Czech meeting! Her talk described her recent advances in understanding the origins of biological metabolism. Way to go, Kamila!
The Moran Research Group 